


Far Too Young Too Die

by GoldenClover



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Major Character Injury, Major character death - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-16 19:13:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7281214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenClover/pseuds/GoldenClover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With every earth-shuddering explosion that sends tremors slithering up his spine, with every bang of a Jap sniper rifle that blows another man off his feet and into the graveyard of dead mothers’ sons, Shelton thinks it’s him. He thinks it’s his blood, thick and sluggish, staining the boiling sand red. He thinks it’s his head slamming against the rocks and he thinks it’s his helmet tumbling off, useless and no longer needed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies for racial slurs (Japs), as it's the thoughts going through Shelton's head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> French translations in the end notes.

            There’s dust in his lungs and screams in his ears and terror in his head as Shelton drags that son-of-a-bitch mortar with him across the vast, choking expanse that is known as Peleliu Airfield. The heavy mortar weighs down on him like a 50-ton barbell, dragging him down, down, down into the dirt and into the sea of severed limbs and bodies and _Jesus Christ, he’s scared, he’s so scared._ With every earth-shuddering explosion that sends tremors slithering up his spine, with every _bang!_ of a Jap sniper rifle that blows another man off his feet and into the graveyard of dead mothers’ sons, he thinks it’s him. He thinks it’s his blood, thick and sluggish, staining the boiling sand red. He thinks it’s his head slamming against the rocks and he thinks it’s his helmet tumbling off, useless and no longer needed. He thinks it’s his hands, reaching, grasping, for anything, anything at all, a friend’s helmet, a parent’s arms, a little sister’s small shoulder, an older brother’s reassuring hands. And he imagines some Jap son of a gun picking through his dead mouth with a knife, searching for gold to make his fortune. But every time, he lets out the breath he hadn’t known he was holding in as he watches some other poor bastard go blasted six feet high then six feet under. And he can’t help but feel a guilty surging relief, that it’s someone else’s brains spattered across the coral. That it isn’t his, that it isn’t any of his buddy’s. No, Sledgehammer, thank god, is right beside him, fiery hair a pop of colour against the never ending blue blanket coating the sky, and and Burgie’s helmet still bobs against the beating sun.

            So he keeps going, plowing through the soul crushing heat and the thick, thick humidity. With every bang, every fresh explosion, he flinches inwardly. On the outside, he keeps his body rigid and his eyes cool, and no one knows that inside, where no one can see him, where no one can call him scared, where no one can accuse him of being not as numb, as unaffected as he pretends, he’s begging _please please please I don’t want to die no no no please_ _I’m only twenty two please anyone mama papa anyone at all please don’t let me die_. He doesn’t know who he’s begging and he doesn’t care. All he knows is that he wants to live, live across every single one of these goddamned islands and beaches and airfields, live long enough to see home again; but he knows he won’t. Not Merriell, Merriell will never see Louisiana again. Merriell will never hug his little sisters again, Merriell will never press his face into his mother’s shoulder again, Merriell will never hold his father’s hand again, because Merriell’s dead. Merriell died back in the freezing rain and drowning mud of Gloucester, and is buried deep in the jungle, a rotting corpse.

            But Snafu, Snafu’s a different story. Snafu can still with his last silvery strand of hope cling to home. Can still cling to the idea of one day walking through his front door and, tossing his seabag into some hidden corner where it and all it represents can be forgotten, have his mama pull him into her arms like he’s her baby again and have his little sisters jump around him excitedly and his papa put his big hands around his shoulders just like when he was little. But home is drifting further and further away, becoming less and less of a reality and more and more of a dream. He can no longer grasp it in his hands, and can now just barely brush it with the tips of his fingertips. But the dream is still there, even if months ago he’d convinced himself to _put that outta your head, boy, you’re gonna die here and that’s that_. Because out here, in the rotting islands of the South Pacific, hope is all he has left. Hope is what wakes him up in the morning, and hope lets him spoon the horseshit that’s supposed to pass for food into his mouth, and hope lets him keep running across the godforsaken Peleliu airfield. But hope alone isn’t enough to keep Snafu safe and suddenly, he’s stopped in his tracks.

            A screaming dagger of pain drives itself into his belly and he lurches forward, tripping over his own feet as he falls. The front of his helmet connects with the ground, and it creates a horrible screeching noise scraping against the rocks and coral as he finally lets his head drop, because it’s all of a sudden become far too heavy for his neck to carry. Instinctively, his hands shoot out to the pain his stomach, clenching against his abdomen. He gasps against the dirt as something hot and sticky oozes its way past his fingers; pumping sluggishly out and mixing in with the gravel and stones of Peleliu. He doesn’t notice it at first, though. At first, all he notices is white-hot pain that seeps up from his stomach and climbs steadily through his half-starved frame. It flashes through his chest and burns in his shoulders and fills his eyes with almost-tears; and for a moment, he can’t breathe. He can’t fucking breathe. He sucks in short, shuddering gasps, but all he feels is the bone-dry of his throat and all that comes out are sharp choking noises until finally, a blast of air hits his lungs. Spasms travel down his body and everything is strangely colourful and far too bright. The world swims before his eyes and slides in and out of focus; A blurry green shape drops down before him and suddenly everything becomes too goddamn sharp and clear and the pale, panicked face of Sledgehammer is burnt into the backs of his eyeballs. “Snaf, Jesus Christ, Snaf!”

            And Shelton hisses in pain as Sledge’s hand reaches out and shakes his shoulder, sending waves of agony down his entire body and the whole world goes a flashing white for a moment before shifting back into his vision. Sledge grips the side of Snafu’s narrow shoulder and pulls him upwards for a moment, gulping nervously at whatever he sees when he looks at Shelton’s stomach. But Snafu doesn’t care what Sledgehammer sees. He’s past caring. All he cares about anymore is the throbbing pain in his abdomen, which is slowing to a dull, gnawing ache. “Shit….” Sledge groans after looking away from Shelton’s stomach, dropping his head in his hands. “This is fucking bad, this is _really fucking bad_.” Snafu’s head lolls to the side, his crumpled form barely supported by Sledgehammer’s arm on his back. He opens his mouth, coughing wetly (coughing, he observes, brings an odd metallic taste onto his tongue), to say something, anything. There are a thousand questions trapped on the tip of his tongue, like, _What do you mean this is bad?_ And, _Am I gonna die? I don’t wanna die, Sledgehamma._ Or, _Why does it hurt so goddamn much? Why is everything so weird an’ bright?_ The pain and shock of a bullet in the belly has gone right to Shelton’s brain, and, to put it bluntly, he doesn’t know what the _fuck_ is going on. He doesn’t know what it is that’s seeping out of his stomach, he doesn’t know why there’s all the pain, he doesn’t know why his body won’t follow commands, and he doesn’t know why Sledgehammer looks so worried. All he knows is that _it really fucking hurts._

            And he tries to speak, he truly does; but the words catch in his throat and his body doesn’t seem to do what he wants it to. But words slurring more than they should, even for Snafu, he manages to choke out with a bitter smirk, “I’m dyin’, Sledge.” Sledgehammer turns his panicked gaze to Shelton’s cloudy blue eyes and draws in a sharp breath, “No, no, you’re not gonna die, Snaf.” He tightens his grip on Snafu so hard Shelton nearly cries out. “You’re not going to die. You’re not, you _can’t_.” Snafu almost laughs at that, because _damn Sledgehamma, don’t you get it yet? Ain’t nobody goin’ home_ , _and ain’t no amount of beggin’ gonna stop tha’_. Because Snafu, just another kid from the backwoods of Louisiana with a razor blade smile, burning eyes, and a too-sharp tongue is lying on some hellhole island far away from home and far away from where he was born and bleeding to death and wishing for his mama, it just goes to show. Nobody’s going home and nobody’s safe from the war, not a smartass little Cajun boy and sure as hell not a pasty-white doctor’s son.

            So Snafu merely blinks, slow and lazy and gasping for breath, “I…. Sledge…” Then it just becomes too much effort to focus on using English, and he slips back into the language of his childhood. “Je…. je ne veux pas mourir, Sledge….” He whines through the wall of pain, the reality of the situation hitting him like a sack of bricks. Snafu had thought he’d come to terms with his death months before, that he’d accepted it, but now, now he doesn’t want to die. He doesn’t want to watch his life wash away in a pool of his own blood, doesn’t want to die here, doesn’t want to die now, in the sand, in the beating-hot sun, without his mama, his papa holding him. He wants to cry and stamp his feet and throw a temper tantrum as if he was six years old again and pound his fists against the ground and scream _I_ _t’s not fair! It’s not fair! It’s not fair!_ He shouldn’t be dying here and now at twenty two, there’s too fucking much he hasn’t done yet. He’s never lived anywhere but his parents' house, never lived anywhere but St. Francisville, never owned a dog, never had a job, not a real job anyway, a job where they didn't toss you a gun and tell you to kill or be killed. And he didn’t know, didn’t think about any of it, until it was too late, and he’s lying limp in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, 8,000 miles away from home, dying. Shelton’s eyes flash open, wide and full of alarm, and he claws at Sledge’s arm near-hysterically, pulling himself into a half-sitting position. “Je ne veux pas mourir, pas maintenant! Pas ici, dans Peleliu! J’veux ma maman, j’veux allers a la maison!” Staring at Sledge with pleading, terrified eyes, he allows his head to drop back down and his eyelids to flutter shut, and a velvety wave of darkness washes over him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Je ne veux pas mourir: I don't want to die  
> Pas maintenant: Not now  
> Pas ici, dans Peleliu: Not here, in Peleliu  
> J’veux ma maman, j’veux allers a la maison: I want my mama, I want to go home


	2. Chapter 2

            Eugene’s eyes are squinted almost shut and the cloud of dust kicked up in front of him nearly blinds him so that he can barely see. He can’t see Burgie or Snaf next to him, nor can he see the nameless man in front of him. But somehow, someway, he _knows_. He _knows_ when Snafu goes down like a sack of bricks. He hears the muffled groan and the pop of a Jap rifle, and he thinks, _Snaf_. Rabbit-quick, he turns on his heel, blood pounding in his ears, and runs like he’s never run before because _Snafu’s hurt, he’s hurt and he might be dying_.

            He drops to his knees next to the crumpled form lying limply in the dust, and it looks wrong, all wrong. The way Shelton’s just _lying_ there with his head in the sand not moving, a ragdoll tossed aside by the wind, he looks….  _dead._ Sledge nearly gags on the rising bile in his throat, because if anything, Snafu is _alive_. He’s alive when he’s poking around in corpses’ mouths, looking for Jap gold with a herculean force he wouldn’t have expected of Shelton’s lean physique, and he’s alive when he’s looking at Sledge, all big-eyed sweetness, and holding out his tin of food and muttering, “Trade ya’.” But the one thing Snaf isn’t is _dead_. He might be looting from dead men or screaming at Japs to “fucking die,” but no matter what, he’s _alive, gloriously alive_. Eyes streaming from what he tells himself is all the sand in his eyes, he thrusts his face close to Snaf’s, anxiously taking in every detail of his face, “Snaf, Jesus Christ, Snaf!” He manages to gasp out, imploring his voice to bring his buddy to his senses. Barely able to breathe at this point, he reaches out gingerly to shake Shelton’s thin shoulder, silently begging _please Snaf, just be okay, be alive and okay_. And a part of him believes that Shelton’s going to jump up any minute now, flip a smoke out of his pocket, and squint at Sledge in that way he does, demanding _“The hell you doin’ Sledgehamma’? Ain’t gotta go shakin’ me an’ shit, I’m fine.”_ But when Eugene shakes him, Shelton makes a noise that sounds, to Sledge at least, like a dying cat and Eugene realizes, _shit, it’s worse than I thought_. Aside from that moan, Snafu says nothing, nothing at all, and Sledge’s about to have a fucking breakdown as he waits for Snaf to say something, anything, goddamnit. But Shelton doesn’t say a word and Sledge is starting to get really, fucking scared. _Goddamnit Shelton, don’t do this to me_. He needs to see the damage for himself, needs to see if Shelton’s even got a chance.

            So carefully, carefully he lifts up Shelton’s too-skinny form to look at his abdomen, which seems to be the source of the majority of the blood. He draws in a sharps breath, the kind that stings his throat like a gust of ice-cold January wind, when he sees the messy bullet hole marring Shelton’s stomach, sluggishly oozing blood and it’s an odd thing to think, but the first thing that passes through Eugene’s mind when he sees it is, _that’s gonna leave a nasty scar_. But then he’s overswept with a wave of nausea, forcing himself to look away as he gently lets Snaf down so that he’s resting on Eugene’s arms. “Shit….” He moans more to himself than anyone. “This is fucking bad, this is _really fucking bad_.” He doesn’t need to be the son of a doctor to know that if Shelton doesn’t get some medical attention _soon_ , he’s going to die. He turns his head back with a start when he’s startled by a weak noise, and looks down to see Snaf coughing. And _oh, god_ he’s coughing up blood.

            This isn’t good. This isn’t good. This isn’t good. Shelton blinks for a moment, and Sledge finds himself looking directly into Snaf’s glazed-over eyes. “I’m dyin’, Sledge.” Shelton rasps, and it takes Sledge a minute to realize what Snaf said, because even though he considers himself pretty a good expert at Snafu speak, Shelton’s slurring so damn much that Eugene almost, almost but not quite, doesn’t understand it. But when he does, his hazel eyes widen and he exclaims, half for Snaf, half for himself, “No, no, you’re not gonna die, Snaf.” He clenches Shelton’s arm so hard that his knuckles turn white. “You’re not going to die. You’re not, you _can’t_.” He needs himself to believe it more than he needs Snaf to, and his breaths begin to come in ragged gulps as Shelton gives him a slow, lazy smirk. And it’s a strange moment, Shelton smiling when he shouldn’t be and Eugene more scared than Snafu. “I… Sledge…” He hears Shelton mumble, and Sledge’s breath hitches in his throat, muscles tense and nervous, ears hanging on to every word. And he breathes a silent sigh of relief, because _thank the heavens, at least he’s speaking, he’s not some lifeless corpse_. But there’s a small voice in the back of Eugene’s mind that whispers, _not_ _yet anyway_ ; he pushes it away and does his best to ignore it for now. But what Shelton says next is a string of words tumbling out of his mouth in a breathless sort of urgency, lilting and beautiful, so that Eugene can only think it’s some kind of French. Then Shelton’s eyes pop and he becomes maniacal, pulling at Sledge’s arm and sitting up and babbling in that _language_. And Sledge is terrified, thinking, _what the hell?_ Snaf’s freaking out and he doesn’t know what to do, until all of a sudden, Shelton just _drops_. He head thumps in the sand and his eyes fall closed and Sledge is wishing for the hysteria from a few moments ago when Shelton was at least moving and talking, but now… he’s just kind of _gone_. 

            Around him, there’s another huge _BANG_ as a Japanese mortar goes off and men are screaming all around him, and Sledge realizes, _shit, I need to get Snaf to safety_. Careful to hurt him as little as possible, he gather’s Shelton’s prone form in his arms, bridal-style. Shelton’s heavier than he looks, and it takes Eugene a while to drag Snaf to the safety behind some rock and set him down against the boulder, sweating and panting for breath. He wants to take a break and catch his breath, but this is Shelton’s life on the line, so leaning forward, he presses his hands against the wound on Shelton’s abdomen, searching desperately for some way to slow the bleeding. In the end, he decides to do it the old-fashioned way and rips some of the cloth off his shirt, and unbuttons Shelton’s in order to tie the makeshift tourniquet around Snaf’s stomach. Fingers shaking and unsteady, he pulls it as tight as he can, praying it’ll slow the bleeding just a little longer. His handiwork isn’t the best, but it’ll have to do. “C’mon Snaf, you’re the meanest sonofagun I ever knew, you can make it through this.” He mutters, half-saying, half-begging. Because _fuck, he can’t lose Snafu_. Not now, not after they’ve everything they’ve been through together. It’s been too long since Shelton tossed a boot on a cot and smirked “taken” at Sledge, too long since he reclined on an old upturned oil barrel and grinned that devilish grin and said, “I like to watch the new guys sweat” for Eugene to just sigh and write off Snaf’s death as another casualty of war, a sad reality of life. He has too many memories of shared smiles and shared cigarettes clouding his brain, too many hot, sleepless nights spent side-by-side in some shitty foxhole, too many muffled conversations in the dark with Shelton’s intense blue-green eyes watching him almost bemusedly. And Sledge doesn’t know what he’d do, doesn’t know if there’d be anything he even could do, if Shelton went and died on him; because right here, on Peleliu, as far as home as he could possibly get and as far as home as he ever wants go, Shelton is his lifeline.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Added Burgie in because his and Snafu's friendship is so rarely mentioned in fics.

            Snafu lets his head roll to the side as he moans weakly, the too-humid heat permeating his heavy shirt and soaking his skin in a pool of sweat. The air is thick and damp, and his head is killing him, and his first thought is, _shit, I musta drunk too much last night_. Pressing a hand to his throbbing temple, he wonders briefly about the pain in his stomach, but writes it off as a side effect of whatever he did last night. Someone, probably his maman, is shaking him all too roughly and he pushes them away with a floppy hand, “Mama, five more minutes.” He slurs, squeezing his eyes shut. “Snaf, you’ve gotta stay awake.” A man’s voice is pleading him, and Shelton opens his eyes, blinking confusedly at the reddish rock and sand surrounding him, because _this ain’t my bedroom_. Also, since when did mama start calling him Snaf? His vision adjusts a little, becoming not so tilted and blurry, and Shelton’s brought back to earth. This isn’t his bedroom in Louisiana. This is Peleliu and he’s got a helluva lot more than a hangover.

            Shakily, he lets his hands relax and fall onto his chest, shocked at how _white_ they are. He’s always been tan, even as a baby, but now he’s paler than even  _Sledgehammer_. Then, all of a sudden the pain comes back, washing over him like a horrible wave. His stomach is screaming and everything goes black for a second, then he’s grounded again. “Sledgehamma?” He croaks, staring dazedly at Eugene above him, “Sledgehamma, it hurts…” he pauses to spit out some of the blood in his mouth, “It hurts worse than… it hurts like tha’ time I fell outta a tree when I was a kid.” When he was twelve, he and some neighbourhood kids had been messing around in the upper branches of a tree and he’d lost his footing and slipped and broken his arm. This, whatever this is, hurts at least ten times more than that ever did, because then his mama had been there too coo over him and chide him at the same time for falling out of the tree while his papa spoilt him rotten, bringing him little gifts and pastries every day when he come home from work for a week after the incident. Here, there's just him, Sledgehammer, and the Japs.

* * *

            After tying the makeshift tourniquet as tightly as he can around the bullet hole, Eugene crouches on his haunches, eyes desperately surveying the airfield for a corpsman or any stretcher carriers who can _get Snafu off the battlefield_ and somewhere where an actual doctor can fix him up and send him stateside. He’s brought away from his task when he hears Shelton make a feeble moan, and he turns his head to Snaf, more alert, if possible, than before. Snaf brings a hand to his head and Eugene remembers something his father had told him a long time before the war and a long time before he’d known there was any more to life than licking melting ice cream and riding his bike down some forgotten country road with Sid. _Never let a patient fall asleep until you are one hundred percent sure they’re not going to die on you_. Any minute, Sledge realizes, Shelton could close his eyes, fall asleep, and never wake up. Urgently, he begins to shake Shelton, not caring if it hurts him, because _goddamnit, anything to keep him awake, anything to keep him alive_. But Snaf bats his hand away, and murmurs, “Mama, five more minutes.” And it would have been funny in a different time, in a different situation, if Shelton wasn’t lying there bleeding to death right in front of his very eyes, and he and Burgie and Leyden could have given Snafu shit for it, but he only pushes his mouth towards Shelton’s ear, ordering him, “Snaf, you’ve gotta stay awake.” Because no way is Sledge gonna let Shelton fall asleep and join Oswalt and everyone else he’s lost to this damn war in the place where dead men go, where he’s lost to Eugene and Eugene can’t reach him. Not while Sledge is alive and breathing and can stop it from happening.

           And when Snafu’s eyelids flicker, Eugene could cry at the sight of them, could cry at every fleck of green dotting the blue, could cry every intricate red vein caused by not enough sleep, could cry at the feather-light eyelashes blinking in the sunlight. Because they mean Shelton is _alive, not another rotting dead body mixed in with all the others scattered across Peleliu, nor a dry and dusty skeleton, but a living, breathing human being_. Shelton’s staring at him strangely, looking confused and vulnerable, when Eugene hears his cracked, barely-there voice ask, “Sledgehamma?” But then, _shit,_ he turns his head to the side and Eugene sees a drop of crimson fly out of his mouth, “Sledgehamma, it hurts…” Sledge’s heart breaks when he hears that, because Shelton’s voice is high and scared and he’s taken aback by just how _young_ Snafu looks. A stray curl, fallen away from Shelton’s untameable mop, flops innocently over his forehead and Snaf’s big blue eyes are nervous and searching, without a hint of malice or anger in them. This isn’t Snafu, the hardened combat veteran, in front of him. This is Merriell Shelton, a twenty-something kid from Louisiana who just wants to go home. 

            Merriell’s breathing is thin and ragged when he manages to cough out a rare insight on his life before the war, “It hurts worse than… it hurts like tha’ time I fell outta a tree when I was a kid.” Sledge frowns, imagining a little Merriell, a Merriell without permanent dark circles underneath worn-out eyes, a Merriell who didn’t wear a thick layer of dried blood and a rough marines uniform, a Merriell who played outside and climbed trees and didn’t grind his teeth at night. Feeling strangely sad and nostalgic for something he’s not quite sure of, he reaches out and squeezes Merriell’s wrist, “I know, Snaf, I know.” He does his best to reassure Merriell, comforting him and fretting over him until he can manage to get a corpsman over here, “It’s... It's gonna be okay, you’ve just gotta hang in there. Everything’s going to be okay.” Merriell only blinks wearily at him, and Sledge feels panic rising in his chest again, because he’s losing him. He’s losing him. Merriell’s getting far too dopey and drowsy, and Sledge knows, he _knows_ , that he’s losing all too much blood. Reluctantly pulling away from Merriell, he stands up and starts to scream, " _Corpsman! Corpsman! Corpsman!_ ” until his voice is hoarse and he keeps on yelling and yelling and all of a sudden, Burgie’s there.

            “Sledgehammer, what’re you calling a corpsman for? You injured?” Burgie’s electric blue eyes roam Eugene, full of concern, searching for any hidden injury or wound. “Burgie, thank god you’re here, Snaf’s hurt bad, He caught a bullet and he's bleeding and I don't think he's gonna last much longer.” Eugene gasps out all in one sentence, grabbing Burgie’s shoulder and giving it a shake, as if to accentuate his point. Burgie’s eyes widen when Sledge says that, and Eugene remembers that Burgie and Merriell had been buddies long before he’d even heard of Peleliu, that they’d fought together on Gloucester and had been through terror together that Eugene had never been through and had made the transformation from boys to soldiers together, which Eugene had never done and never would do with Merriell, and they share a bond that Eugene and Merriell, as close as they are, will never have. Not like Burgie and Merriell do. “ _Shit._ ” Burgie spits, just now noticing Merriell slumped against the rock, eyes half-closed and breaths wheezing thinner and thinner.

            He darts away from Sledge and drops down next Merriell’s crumpled form. Tentatively, Burgie reaches out and touches Merriell’s arm, murmuring something to him in the gentlest voice Eugene’s ever heard him use, and he can’t hear what he says, but Merriell mumbles a soft response to whatever Burgie just said. Then Burgie straightens up and looks Eugene straight in the eye, “Sledgehammer, I’m gonna go get a corpsman; keep an eye on Snaf and make sure he doesn’t die on us.” Turning back to Merriell, he says “Snaf, stay with us here, buddy.” Turning one last desperate glance to Sledge, the two of them share a look that says _he needs to make it through this_. Sledge realizes that he sometimes forgets that Burgie's about the same age as Merriell and him, he forgets that he's not older; being war-worn and tired makes Burgie to act and look like a much older man than he truly is. But Eugene doesn't dwell on it anymore, because right now, Merriell is all that matters to him. Keeping Merriell alive. So with a quick "good luck, don't get killed," he watches Burgie disappear back into the noise and explosions of the airfield. And Sledge, settling back down next to Merriell, prays that Burgie can only get back in time.


	4. Ending #1

            “Snaf… hey, Snaf, Burgie’s gone to get a corpsman, but I need you to stay awake and talk to me, okay?” Sledge subconsciously tightens his grip around Merriell’s hand, eyeing him anxiously. Merriell peers up at him through heavy-lidded eyes, blinking sleepily; bullet-addled brain taking a moment to process what Eugene just said to him. Eugene’s just starting to worry when Merriell wheezes a soft, “M’kay.” His voice is all too quiet and his eyes are starting to dull, and his breaths are coming in fast, ragged gasps, pulse beating rapidly. _Burgie, hurry up,_ Sledge pleads silently. Looking down, he notices Merriell’s once green shirt is now stained a dark red, a crimson flower that’s continuing to spread along his already blood-soaked torso, and his head is tilted back, resting on the rock and lolling to the side just a bit, eyes beginning to flutter shut against too-pale cheeks. “Shelton, keep your eyes open.” Eugene commands harshly, doing the first thing that comes to mind and slapping Merriell in the face.

            Merriell jumps, eyes fiery, “The hell, Sledgehamma?” He snarls, glaring at Eugene ferociously. Good. Angry means awake and not dead. “Don’ fuckin _slap_ me, I ain’t your dog.” Sledge, secretly breathing a sigh of relief Merriell isn’t about to pass out on him anymore, looks Merriell directly in the eye. “I told you not to sleep, Shelton, you were drifting off.” He says, matter of factly, as if that explains everything. He crosses his arms and stares at Merriell cooly. Still grumbling, Merriell slumps back down, eyes already starting to flicker shut again, “I wasn’t gonna sleep…. was just gonna close my eyes for sec, tha’s all.” He drawls, coughing weakly, “Jus’ tired, tha’s all.” His head drops so that it’s resting on Sledge’s shoulder, a soft weight, a reminder that Burgie still isn’t back with a corpsman yet. “‘Sides,” he continues, talking more nonsense than anything now, “We don’ have any other time to sleep an’ I’m _tired_ and it hurts and I wanna sleep.” He raises his fringed eyelashes so he’s looking Sledge groggily in the eye, “Gene... “ Sledge’s breath catches in his throat, Merriell’s never called him Gene before. He’s always been Sledge or Sledgehammer, never _Gene_. “Gene… I’m scared.” Merriell’s bottom lips quivers and for a strange moment, Eugene thinks that he’s going to cry, but then he just casts his gaze downwards and swallows a wet-sounding gulp. “I don’t wanna die. Please, Gene. I don’t wanna die.” Merriell sounds almost desperate, terrified. He’s looking up at Sledge now, all watery eyes and soft, scared features, and Sledge sees what Merriell must have looked like when he was little. When he was just a baby; and that’s what Merriell is now, a scared little boy. Not a gun-wielding marine. Not a cigarette-smoking, constantly swearing symbol of terror. Not a knife-lover with a dangerous smile who you asked your mama to check for under the bad. A scared little boy who's gotten caught up in a war bigger than himself and doesn’t want to die.

            Merriell’s head is tilted back, pale eyes glassy and unfocused, crimson blood trickling steadily from the gaping wound in his stomach, staining the sand around him a dusty rose. Sledge’s hand is wrapped around Merriell’s bony wrist in a vice-grip, and his head is ducked low so that he’s got his eyes fixed steadily on Merriell’s white-as-a-sheet face “C’mon Snaf, don’t die on me now, buddy. Keep your eyes on me. Hang in there.” Frantically, he shakes his fast-fading friend. But Merriell’s not looking at him anymore, he’s staring into space, at something only he can see. His shoulders are slack against Sledge’s side, and his fingers are loose and limp within Eugene’s hand, and Sledge realizes _shit, nonononono, he’s gone he’s gone he's gone, he’s dead_. Doing his damned best to hold in the scream building up in his throat, he grabs Merriell’s shoulders and gives them a sharp jerk, “ _Snafu, Snafu, wake up!_ ” He all but screams.

        And Eugene nearly falls back in surprise when Merriell pushes him away with feeble hands, “Calm down Sledgehamma, I ain’t fallen asleep.” And Sledge is hit with a wave of relief because, _he’s alive, he isn’t dead_ , _he’s alive_. “Fuck, Shelton, thought I’d lost you there.” He smiles weakly, doing his best to sound light and joking as he runs a sweaty hand through his hair, letting out a as much stress as he can in a whoosh of air and trying to stop the shaking in his shoulders. “Nah… nah, I ain’t dead yet, Sledgehamma.” Merriell returns his watery smile and pats him awkwardly on the back, hand leaving a sickly red blood print on Eugene’s uniform, “You ain’t gettin' rid of me that easy.” Sledge breathes a sigh of relief, clenching his eyes shut for a moment and sucking in a few deep breaths. He cracks a slight grin, “Who says I want to get rid of you? After all, who else is gonna give me free cigarettes?” He winks at Merriell, “Besides, after all this, I should think you owe me _something_.”

            Merriell laughs, short and sharp, “To hell with tha’, Sledgehamma, I don’t owe you shit.” Eugene just grins and pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, lighting one and holding it out to Merriell. Taking it with trembling hands, Merriell sticks it in his mouth, and they sit in a pregnant silence for a while, Eugene quietly watching puffs of smoke from Merriell’s cigarette float away dreamily and Merriell coughing softly, white fingers growing steadily more and more lax against the cigarette. Merriell’s eyes are just beginning to drift closed and his hand is unmoving against the gravel, cigarette lying forgotten and smoking a few inches away, when Burgie appears, ducking under a couple stray bullets and crouching in front of them with a harried expression. “I got a corpsman…. _shit,_ did he die on us?” Merriell peels his eyelids open fixes an indignant eye on Burgie, “Fuck no. Between you and Sledgehamma I just died ‘bout three times.” Burgie closes his eyes and lets out a relieved sigh, and just then a medic appears, followed by some guys holding a stretcher. The medic nods and Merriell is carefully lifted onto the stretcher, arms rolling limply over the sides and eyes completely shut now; and Eugene lets his tensed body relax, because _thank god, Merriell's gonna finally get a fucking doctor_. Merriell isn’t okay yet, not yet, but now he at least has a chance. and in this miserable war, that’s really all Sledge could ask for. He’ll be left to guess whether Merriell made it or not when the man either comes back or not at all; then he’ll be left to wonder if Merriell’s dead or just stateside, but right now, Merriell’s alive and has a chance, and that’s better than lying dead in a foxhole somewhere, another nameless corpse. Readjusting his weapon, Sledge drags himself to his feet, preparing to throw himself along with Burgie back into the fray, where they run back into the airfield of shrieking metal and screams.


	5. Ending #2

            Merriell’s head is tilted back, pale eyes glassy and unfocused, crimson blood trickling steadily from the gaping wound in his stomach, staining the sand around him a dusty rose. Sledge’s hand is wrapped around Merriell’s bony wrist in a vice-grip, and his head is ducked low so that he’s got his eyes fixed steadily on Merriell’s white-as-a-sheet face “C’mon Snaf, don’t die on me now, buddy. Keep your eyes on me. Hang in there.” Frantically, he shakes his fast-fading friend. But Merriell’s not looking at him anymore, he’s staring into space, at something only he can see. His shoulders are slack against Sledge’s side, and his fingers are loose and limp within Eugene’s hand, and Sledge realizes _shit, nonononono, he’s gone he’s gone he's gone, he’s dead_. Doing his damned best to hold in the scream building up in his throat, he grabs Merriell’s shoulders and gives them a sharp jerk, “Snafu, Snafu, wake up!” He all but screams. “C’mon, wake the fuck up, Shelton.” He sobs, giving Merriell another sharp jerk; but when he does, Merriell just flops lifelessly, eyes dull and staring, body limp.

            He’s dead, oh god, he’s _dead_. Merriell’s dead. It hits him in the stomach like a hundred pound weight and Sledge suddenly feels very small because,  _what am I supposed to do now?_ He’s gotten so used to Merriell’s shoulders brushing his, Merriell’s drawling voice comforting him in the dark, Merriell’s eyes staring at him, all wild and owl-like, that Eugene realizes: he doesn’t know what to be without Merriell around. Merriell has, in his own quiet way, edged himself into Sledge’s life and into his heart and become as much a part of Sledge as Sledge himself, and now Eugene doesn’t know how to live without Merriell by his side. He tastes salt on his tongue, and he hadn’t known that he was crying, but now he lets it all out. His shoulders shake and the tears roll freely down his cheeks, because _Merriell is dead_. “Wake up, Snafu, wake up, goddamnit!” He shakes Merriell’s body ferociously, knuckles white and eyes blazing, but Merriell doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t say anything, and Eugene breaks down again, pulling Merriell towards him and enwrapping him in the tightest hug possible, desperately trying to shake Merriell awake. But _it’s not working, goddamnit_. And all Sledge wants is for Merriell to _just wake up._ He wants him to push Sledge away, tell him to “ _Cut the bullshit, Sledgehamma,”_ and _wake the fuck up_.

            Still crying, he pushes a stray lock of hair away from Merriell’s face and sets him down against the blood-stained sand. “Please, Merriell, _please_.” He whispers, staring down at Merriell’s blank face with blurry, tear-filled eyes, all the fury of a few seconds ago gone and replaced with a dull, aching sadness “Just _wake up_.” His face falls into his hands and for a long time, he just kneels there, head in hands, sobbing. He’s bawling like he’s a baby, and he desperately wants his mother to come and hug him and tell him everything will be alright and fill his head with sweet, sugary lies. Because he knows nothing’s alright and nothing will ever be alright again, because Merriell’s dead, he’s dead and he isn’t coming back. And Sledge can’t believe it, won’t believe it, that Merriell’s dead. He shouldn’t have died like he did, and it breaks Eugene’s heart, because he can only imagine how scared he would have been, how alone he would have felt, if he’d been the one lying there dying all the way out here in the South Pacific with a bullet in his stomach.

            And it doesn’t suit Merriell’s brashness and loudness to have died like he did, quietly and without a word. _There one minute, gone the next. Merriell should have gone with a flash and a bang, perhaps some outrageous last words,_ Eugene thinks, _not silently, slipping away while half-asleep_. And it makes Sledge feel sick to the stomach to realize that Merriell had died begging Eugene not to let him die, and that soon, Merriell’s mama’s going to be at home one day when there’ll be a knock on her door and they’ll tell her her son’s dead, “he died for America, ma’am.” They’ll say to her, “He died for peace, liberty, and justice for all.” Or some bullshit like that. But the truth is Merriell died scared and alone. He died wishing he’d never entered this damn war, to hell with peace and liberty. He died wishing for nothing but his mama and his life. And Sledge knows that Merriell never gave a damn about America and justice, he was just here for the paycheck and the extra bonus of the Jap gold. And now, now Merriell’s dead and gone, all because someone told him _join the marine corps, fight for your country and make money while you’re at it_ , and he signed up and he signed his life away and it’s not _fair_. It’s not fair that his mama’s heart is going to be broken and his papa’s too, it’s not fair that Merriell died at twenty two, just a baby. It’s not fair and right now, Eugene would give anything, anything at all, to bring Merriell back. He wants nothing more than to have his friend back and smoking and cursing and _alive_ , and he feels like he’s lost a part of himself.

            It isn’t like when Oswalt died. When Oswalt had died, Sledge’d been sad for a little while and gotten over, because that’s what you do. But Merriell, Merriell is different. Now that Merriell’s dead, a little part of Eugene’s dead too, because Merriell wasn’t just another buddy to laugh and make dumb jokes and chat with. Merriell was something so much more to Eugene, and he can’t quite place what, but he meant so much more than just another buddy and now he’s gone. Sledge brings his knees to his chest and folds his arms over his face, blocking it from view. As if the Japs care whether Sledge is crying or not. Because that’s exactly what Sledge does; he cries and cries and cries until he begins to feel sick, and he wonders if he’s going to puke, and he doesn’t know if he feels sick from crying or sick from sadness. He cries until his eyes are dry and he can’t cry anymore because there are no more tears left for him to cry, but he keeps on crying anyway. And he cries until Burgie is in front of him, shaking him sharply by the shoulder and asking him, “Is he dead, Sledgehammer? Tell me, please tell me, he isn’t dead. He _can’t_ be.” And Sledge is so shocked to see Burgie looking at him with wide, terrified eyes and a cracked, shaking voice, because Burgie is always the voice of reason, the calm in the hurricane. Burgie doesn’t panic and Burgie doesn’t cry.

            “He’s gone, Burgie…. He’s gone.” Sledge chokes out. “ _Fuck!”_ Burgie yells, kicking a stone about six feet, then holding his foot and cursing in pain, “ _Fuck!”_ He shouts again, eyes burning with fury, at who or what Sledge doesn’t know. Sledge just sits quietly, letting Burgie have his meltdown before they have to keep moving and Burgie keeps screaming and kicking things until he collapses onto the ground, shoulders heaving and eyes watering. Burgie turns to Merriell’s body, crouching down beside him. _No, it_ , _not him_ , Sledge corrects himself. Because there’s no Merriell in there anymore, and it’s just a body, a shell. That’s all it is. Burgie’s head is bent low when he lays a hand on Merriell’s limp shoulder, “Fuck you, Snaf.” He whispers, tears welling in his eyes. “Fuck you, fuck you for dying and fuck you for not sticking around.” Burgie turns to Sledge and gulps, voice soft and hesitant when he speaks. “We…. we need to keep moving.” Sledge sees him squeeze his eyes shut for a minute, “We need to keep moving.” Eugene just nods silently, dragging himself to his feet, and he sees Burgie bend down and close Merriell’s eyes, brushing his messy curls out of his face and tilting his head so it looks just like Merriell’s sleeping. _That’s right, he’s only sleeping_ , Eugene tells himself, trying to convince himself. He sees Burgie give Merriell a last, long look before turning to run back into the throng. Eugene, too, looks at Merriell’s dead body one last time before murmuring a final, “ _Goodbye, Snaf,_ ” and following after Burgie, into a world without a Snafu.


End file.
